All Set on Cereal Boxes

We have enough now for our upcoming project-- thank you!!

Sprouting Bags have Sprouted!

Our sprouting bags have sprouted! Recently we took them down off the wall to examine them closely. We drew how they had changed, and labeled the roots and the shoot of the new plant starting to grow. We did some detailed science drawings.

We decided to hang the bags back up afterward for a little while longer but this time, to see what will happen, we hung them upside down with the roots pointing up and the shoot pointing down. We are starting to notice some interesting changes that might help us better understand the role of the leaves and roots of a plant...

Tens and Ones

Friday we played a game in math called Two Turns to Win. Students had to work with bundles of ten and single sticks to practice adding two-digit numbers.

Cereal Boxes Wanted

Dear Families,

We are working hard on writing fiction stories in writing workshop. Students are all writing a series, or multiple books about the same character or characters. We are trying to get a lot of ideas of how to make our stories great from some favorite first-grade series like Henry and Mudge and Poppleton and Mr. Putter and Tabby. It is exciting work! In a couple of weeks when we wrap up the unit, I hope to have students show off a finished series by making a "boxed set" such as the way they might see published series packaged. As such, I'd like to collect an empty cereal box for each student to use. Thank you in advance if you can donate one or two!

Inside a Seed

We soaked seeds overnight. At first they were hard. After soaking overnight, we could split them open and learn about the parts!

 After:

 We labeled the parts of a seed.

Also this week we started some sprouting bags so we'll be able to see these seeds do their work up close.

And, of course, our study of plant parts would not be complete without trying to grow some of our own.

Field Trip this Month!

Exciting first-grade news: 

We have a field trip coming up at the end of the month! On Wednesday, May 30 we will travel to Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford. We will be gone for about half of the school day. We'll get to take part in some farm activities, do some tasting, and learn more about plant parts and the jobs they do. You all signed a field trip permission form at the beginning of the year, so I won't need to send home another of those. 

I will send a reminder and more details as the trip gets closer.

"Silent E"

In Fundations we have been working with "silent e." A vowel, then a consonant, then silent e means the vowel sound is long. Now when reading and spelling we have to check whether the vowel sound is short or long. We now practice more than one sound and key word for each vowel. (Letter "u" has two long sounds!)

We now know two syllable types. Closed syllables have exactly one vowel, closed in by at least one consonant at the end. Closed syllables make a short vowel sound. We've known about these for a while. New to first graders are vowel-consonant-e syllables, which have a long vowel sound. We are working hard to identify these syllable types and "mark" them, in our dictation practices, in our morning message responses, and even in the short controlled stories we practice reading fluently.